Friction
by thearrowsoflegolas
Summary: Trooper RN-0087 is good at three things. Cooking a half decent lasagne, washing up pots and staying out of trouble. This all changes when a chance encounter causes her to discover that she is force-sensitive, able to move objects at will. The sullen and grumpy Kylo Ren takes her under his wing as a protégé, vowing to train her well enough to fight for the first order. SLOWburn
1. Fragmentation

**LOCATION: KITCHEN FOUR - STARKILLER BASE**

 **STARDATE: 15/09/1843**

"What time is it?" I heard an obnoxious voice from my left ask. I ignored whoever it was and continued with my job, stirring the large pot of porridge-like gruel on the worktop in front of me.

Look down. Don't talk. Don't draw any attention to yourself.

They were the three most important rules when working on Starkiller Base. Do your job and nothing else.

"Nearly twelve. That food better be ready for the stormtroopers when they arrive." Came the metallic-sounding response from CN-9778, our resident head-chef.

'Food' was a generous term. The bowls of standardised protein supplement and dehydrated carbs that were slowly boiling away in the pot in front of me couldn't very easily be called 'food'. Necessary nutrients, sure, but nothing that anybody particularly enjoyed eating.

A single strand of black hair fell out of my hairnet and I blew it away, annoyed. The kitchen was, in my opinion, the worst place to work on the whole base. It was always too hot, always too sweaty, and there were _always_ too many people.

"Alright, let's move it out," The familiar shout came from CN-9778, who had checked his watch again and concluded that it was time for us to dole the food out to the line of waiting stormtroopers in the cafeteria.

Stormtroopers. Now that's an exciting job. Getting to see new places, meet new people. I lifted the heavy saucepan by the handles and grunted slightly as I carried it over to an empty workplace, before doling out spoonfuls of the grey substance into plastic lunch trays. If I was a stormtrooper I wouldn't have maize-substitute on my face either.

Some things in life just weren't fair.

"Someone needs to bring Ren his lunch," CN-9778 reminded us curtly. I snorted inwardly to myself. Some poor bastard would have to face the wrath of one of the moodiest people in the whole base. Luckily, it wasn't my week this week.

"RV-0087," I lifted my head at the familiar number, looking at the head-chef with confusion.

"Yes, Sir?"

He nodded towards a plate next to him, which contained two ham sandwiches on brown bread. Nothing of great interest, but certainly a lot more exciting than what most of us were eating.

"I'm sorry, Sir?" I asked, still not understanding.

He sighed melodramatically, and picked up the plate, walking over to me and putting it in my hand. The cool feel of the ceramic clay was refreshing on my too-hot skin.

"Bring Ren his lunch."

My eyebrows raised in indignation.

"But Sir!" I protested, "I was on Ren duty two weeks ago. I'm not on again until next month! I though it was TG-7556's turn this week?"

"Chef TG-7556 has lungworm." The taller man responded, raising his eyebrow at me as if he was surprised that I had dared to speak out of turn, "Don't make me report you, RV-0087."

I pursed my lips and breathed a long sigh out of my nose in annoyance, before nodding politely and turning to one of the kitchen workers behind me. She was looking at me with something akin to sympathy.

"Could you finish up here for me?" I asked her, gesturing to the saucepan on the side, still half-full. She nodded silently and took my place, dishing out spoonfuls of the lumpy substance into trays.

I grasped the plate slightly tighter in my annoyance and walked out of the kitchen into a long dimly-lit corridor. I _hated_ taking food to Ren. It was always the same situation.

Knock on the door. Wait at least twenty seconds before the resounding 'enter'. Place the plate on the table and _do not_ under _any circumstances_ look at him. Never in my four years of serving Lord Ren his meals had he ever once thanked me, asked me for my name or even acknowledged my presence. He probably thought his food just magically appeared in front of him every day at twelve on the dot.

Pretentious bastard.

I reached his quarters just in time, and like always, knocked three times on the large black door.

"Enter."

The voice came quickly this time, and I pushed open the door gently, slipping inside the room silently.

It was sparsely furnished; one desk and one chair at the side of the room, which the brooding form of Ren was sat at now looking furiously at the papers in front of him, one large double bed pushed up against the wall, and one mahogany wardrobe, doors tightly closed.

What the hell did the guy keep in there, anyway? I never saw him in anything that wasn't his usual drab black get-up.

I walked to the desk, plate grasped tightly in my hand. Give him the food and then get out of there before he could shout at me, that was the plan. Or at least, that _was_ the plan until I tripped over a loose floorboard, my black shoe getting caught behind it as I walked. Almost in slow motion, the momentum of my body continued forwards whilst my feet stayed where they were, planted on the ground. I let go of the plate, bringing my hands up to meet the floor as I fell.

I crashed into the ground painfully and watched in horror as the plate came hurtling down in front of me. Without thinking, I lifted my hand up, even though it was far too far for me to ever be able to reach.

And it stopped.

The plate stopped in mid-air, floating on nothing as I held my hand out, the two sandwiches still resting perfectly fine in the middle of it. I looked at it, confused.

There was the sound of a chair scraping backwards, and suddenly warm hands were on my shoulders, pulling me up off the ground. The plate, which had now lost my concentration, came shattering to the floor, crashing as it broke on the metal tiles.

"How did you do that?"

I was in a state of shock. The taller man was holding onto my shoulders, much closer to me than I was comfortable with, his face inches from mine. The proximity was so great that I could see every freckle, every mole. The whites of his eyes.

"I... I'm sorry, Sir. It won't happen again," I stuttered. My heart was in my throat. This didn't happen. Ren didn't get up out of his seat, he didn't talk to the servants. He certainly didn't hold them tightly by the shoulders and stare directly into their eyes, searching for something that he couldn't find.

"How did you do that?" He repeated, apparently not fazed by the fact that his perfectly-prepared lunch was now covering the floor of his living quarters.

"I don't know!" I exclaimed. It was the truth, I didn't know what had just happened. All that I had been thinking was that I didn't want him to shout at me, didn't want him to give CN-9778 another reason to put me on washing-up duty for a month. And I'd put my hand out to stop the plate from falling and-

He took a step back from me, apparently becoming aware of our proximity. He was tall. Not just tall, but towering as he looked down at me, looming at least a foot above my head.

"What's your name?" His voice was impossibly low.

"RN-0087," I replied, my heart pounding.

"Where do you work, RN-0087?"

"Kitchen Four," I responded, fidgeting slightly under his too-intense gaze.

He nodded pensively.

"Has anything like this ever happened before?"

"No, Sir. And it won't happen again, I promise. I don't know what came over me." I was terrified, literally shaking with fear. I had seen what this man could do. Ren was the kind of person who could kill someone from across the room without even moving his little finger.

The corner of a full lip quirked up into a small smirk at the fear in my tone.

"You're not in trouble, RN-0087. I just want to know how long you've had the force for."

I couldn't help myself. I snorted.

Actually snorted in front of Kylo Ren, debatably the most powerful man in the galaxy. And I _snorted_.

" _I_ don't have the force, Sir. I'm just a chef." I explained, trying to cover up my urge to laugh. This was ridiculous.

He smiled again. It was an uncomfortable smile, his lips closed slightly too tight, not reaching his eyes.

"Have you worked here long, RN-0087?" He asked, pulling his chair up behind him and taking a seat, ignoring the mess of food on the floor. Even when sitting, he was still only a few inches shorter than me, "I've never seen you here before."

I raised an eyebrow incredulously.

"I've literally been serving you meals for the last four years,"

It came out slightly snappier than I intended, and Ren's eyes narrowed.

"Careful..." I felt a jolt of fear run down my spine at the word, "I'm not a very patient man, RN-0087. I don't take kindly to disrespect."

"I'm sorry, Sir. It won't happen again, Sir."

He licked his lips thoughtfully, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. He looked up at me again.

"Go back to the kitchen. I'll have a word with your head chef. I think you and I are going to be seeing much more of each other."

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 **That**

 **is much better than it was before**

 **whoo**

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	2. Fearfulness

**Snoke looks like a giant scrotum and that's the only author's note that I'm putting on this Chapter.**

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 **LOCATION: KYLO REN'S QUARTERS - STARKILLER BASE**

 **STARDATE: 15/09/1843**

"Go back to the kitchen. I'll have a word with your head chef. I think you and I are going to be seeing much more of each other."

The sentence was out of Ren's mouth before he could stop himself. His hand was shaking slightly, and he clenched his fist inside his thick leather glove to try to still the tremor.

This was unexpected.

The girl nodded at him with wide green eyes. She looked young, he noticed. Barely twenty, her pale face clear and long strands of black hair escaping from the blue plastic hairnet pulled over her head. Not unattractive.

RN-0087. The RN troopers were kitchen workers, in charge of preparing and serving the meals eaten by everybody in Starkiller base. Perhaps not the most glamorous of jobs, but certainly an important one.

She nodded at his order and turned to go, almost running out of the room, slamming the door behind her, desperate to be out of Ren's company. He didn't blame her. She was short, much shorter than him, but he assumed that it was more than the height difference that intimidated her. Ren exuded power. He practically radiated it. It was an advantage in a battle, but not when it came to relationships.

Not that he needed relationships.

He let out a deep sigh that he didn't realise he had been holding in, and ran his hand through his dark hair, pushing it back from his face. There were shards of the broken plate still on the floor, but he ignored them, sitting back in his seat and looking intently at the tactical maps in front of him. The letters blurred into each other, swimming about the page like fish. He couldn't concentrate.

His mind was whirring, the mental image of trooper RN-0087's face as she lifted her hand out and stopped the plate in mid-air flashing across his mind. It was obvious, she had never done that before. Ren rubbed his hand over his chin pensively.

The force was strong with her. He could feel it in his bones when he touched her shoulders, she was stronger than she realised. But her use of it was messy, clumsy. The plate had fallen as soon as she had taken her concentration off it.

He pushed himself up from his seat and walked towards the door, not forgetting to grab his thick metal helmet from the desk and place it over his head. It was cramped, and the visibility was terrible, but Ren preferred to have his face covered.

His eyes always told too much.

He opened the door and walked out into the well-lit corridor of Starkiller base. He knew where he was going, and he walked with a purposeful stride, his long legs covering the necessary distance quickly.

By the time he reached Supreme Leader Snoke's quarters, he had calmed down slightly, the tremor in his left hand reducing to only an occasional spasm.

Despite the fact that Ren hated to admit it, Snoke scared him. The omniscient leader always seemed to know what he was going to do before he did it, and it wasn't uncommon for him to use force when Ren didn't do well enough. His quarters were massive, the largest room in the basement of the ship, the ceiling so high above Ren's head that he couldn't even see it. Ren's footsteps echoed in the giant arena, and as he walked forwards, the empty chair at the apex of the room shimmered slightly as the holographic form of General Snoke appeared in front of him.

"Supreme Leader-" Ren began, his low voice echoing in the massive arena.

"There better be a good reason for this unprecedented conference, Kylo." The sound of Snoke's voice, gravelly and harsh, sent a thrill of fear down Ren's back. Snoke was a sight to look at, a mass of sinew and greying flesh that looked like it had been moulded into the shape of a man by somebody who had been told what humans looked like, but had never seen one himself. Snoke had been the person to bring Ren to the dark side. He had taught him everything he knew, how to control his use of the force, how to resist the call to the light, how to rise up to one day be as strong as Darth Vader, his grandfather.

"There is." His voice came out slightly metallic, distorted by the thick metal mask, "There is a girl who works here, a cook in the kitchens. She has the force."

Snoke's eyebrows raised, intrigued. He leant forwards, his long fingers grasping the armrests of his large metal chair.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive," Kylo responded with certainty.

Snoke lifted his left hand, and Kylo pursed his lips as he felt the thin tendrils of thought sneak into his mind, probing and searching. Snoke was of the impression that it was much quicker to get information by simply plucking it out of somebody's head than bothering to ask for it. Ren clenched his fist again as he stood, stock still, letting Snoke look through his mind. He saw her, red faced and terrified, shaking as he grabbed her by the shoulders. He regretted that slightly, there was no need for him to have got emotional upon discovering her powers. He gritted his teeth in discomfort as the probing fingers removed themselves from his mind, leaving him once again alone. He let out a huff of breath.

"It seemed to be emotively controlled," Kylo explained, relieved to be free once more.

Snoke nodded. That wasn't unusual. The force usually expressed itself through emotions before the user learnt to control it. RN-0087 had been scared. Scared of him, scared of the repercussions of dropping the plate, scared that she would be punished somehow. That fear hand manifested itself into an expression of force. It was primal, animalistic.

"What do you recommend I do?"

Snoke thought for a second, before looking down at Ren with eyes too small for his bulbous face.

"You need to train her."

He took a step back in shock. He hadn't been expecting that.

"What?"

The corner of Snoke's mouth lifted in a mockery of a smile.

"We have a war ahead of us, Kylo. We need as many fighters as we can get. This girl may be useful to us."

Ren nodded in understanding.

"Also," Snoke continued, "This can be a test of your powers. It takes an exceptional force user to train another. Prove to me that you're up for the challenge." The sentence sounded like a threat.

"Yes, Supreme Leader."

"Dismissed."

That was it. No further conversation to be had. Ren bowed in respect and turned on his heel, walking out of the room with a long stride. He was annoyed. He had too much to be doing at the moment; battles to plan and a lost jedi to find. The last thing that he needed was a protégée to train. His mind wandered to his own training with Luke Skywalker. It had been a long and arduous process, trying to get him to the stage that he was now.

He continued to walk, Stormtroopers and Generals alike moving out of his way as he strode along the corridors, looking for one place in particular.

Kitchen Four.

He took all the right twists and turn through the maze of floors and walls, and eventually arrived at the door. He pushed it open, not bothering to knock, and was immediately hit by a wave of heat. The room was boiling, at least twenty cooks, all in the same white scrubs and blue hair nets ran around in a mad panic, chopping and slicing and frying and boiling. He spotted RN-0087 immediately, stood at a large sink, her sleeves rolled up, piles and piles of dirty dished and pots lined up in front of her. She hadn't noticed him come in.

"Mr. Ren, Sir," a voice from his left. He turned to his side and looked down in surprise to see a short man with close-cropped greying hair looking up at him nervously, "I'm CN-9778, head-chef. Can I do anything for you? Do you want something to eat? Drink?"

"I want RN-0087."

The chef raised his eyebrows in shock at Ren's request, wringing his hands together.

"I heard about what happened this morning. I've put her on washing up duty for the next three months, and I can only apologise, Sir. I promise this kind of incident will never happen agai-"

"Just give me the girl." Ren was getting annoyed. He didn't have time for this.

"Of course, Sir. Right away, Sir."

The man scurried away, roughly grabbing the girl by the shoulder and pulling her away from the sink. She looked around in confusion and her eyes widened when she saw Ren at the door. His lip quirked up into a smile as he didn't miss the fact that she mouthed the word 'fuck' when she saw him. Behind the mask, however, nobody could see him.

The kitchen was silent as RN-0087 removed her hairnet and walked over to Ren, slowly, almost as if she was preparing for an execution.

"Do whatever you deem necessary, Sir," CN-9778 was _still_ talking, his hand gripping tightly to RN-0087's arm "The mistake this morning was unacceptable, she deserves a punishment. I assure you, this kind of thing doesn't usually happe-"

Kylo flicked his left hand and the man went flying backwards, crashing into a stack of empty pots and pans. He let out a strangled grunt as he fell to the floor, looking up at Ren with an expression of pure fear.

He looked down at RN-0087, her green eyes wide in shock.

"Come with me."

He turned on his back and walked out of the kitchen and she followed suit, jogging slightly to keep up with his stride.

"Am I in trouble?" She asked as she walked next to him. He rolled his eyes, turning a corner and continuing to walk.

"I am to teach you the ways of the force."

" _What?_ " she stopped walking, her face morphing into a shocked expression. Ren stopped too, annoyed.

"You have power, but it's sloppy, lazy. I'm going to teach you how to use that power in a way that could be beneficial to the First Order."

She bit her lip, and took a wary step forwards.

"So you're not gonna throw me out of an air-lock?"

He surprised himself by letting out an unexpected snort of laughter at her sentence. The mask distorted the sound, making it come out as more of an annoyed sigh.

"You're not getting thrown out of an airlock, RN-0087."

He thought for a second, looking down at her.

"You are going to have to choose yourself a name, though."

Her eyebrow quirked up in confusion.

"What?"

"I'm not going to spend the next year calling you by a number. Pick a name."

He could see the cogs whirring in her brain, thinking desperately. She licked her lips.

"RN." Her voice came out unsure, "How about Robin?"

"Robin," He agreed, turning and continuing to walk, hearing her footsteps running behind him to catch up, "Your training starts today."

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	3. Frustration

**Thank you for all the comments so far, much much appreciated xx Hope you enjoy this chapter :)**

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 **LOCATION: TRAINING ROOM R6: STARKILLER BASE**

 **STARDATE: 15/09/1843**

 _"Focus,"_ Ren hissed at me through gritted teeth, and I let out a huff of air, concentrating all of my attention on the thick black helmet that he had removed from his head and placed in the middle of the floor. I had never been in one of the training areas, so the sheer size of it surprised me. The floor was completely covered in blue plastic mats, to offer a small amount of protection should I fall, and it wasn't an exaggeration to say that literally _hundreds_ of weapons lined the walls. Blasters and lightsabers and even staffs and swords were all lined up, ready for practice.

Ren had ignored every single one of them, however. He wasn't interested in teaching me how to fight, he was interested in teaching me how to move that bloody helmet.

I took a step backwards, breath coming fast, beads of sweat beginning to form on my forehead at the exertion. I didn't know how long we had been trying this. It could have been minutes, could very easily have been hours, but every muscle in my body felt as if it were on fire. I had removed my white chef's jacket, leaving me in just a white tank top and blue pants, through which patches of sweat were beginning to show.

"I told you to focus, Robin."

He sounded annoyed, and for a second I couldn't tell whether his voice was spoken out loud into the empty training room or inside my head. I looked up at him from underneath damp eyelashes. He was stood still, tall and straight as a tree, his face irritatingly passive. He hadn't even broken a sweat.

"I'm _trying_ ,"

"Well, you're not trying hard enough."

I rolled my eyes at his response and looked back up at the mask. It sat, irritatingly resolute in the centre of the floor. It hadn't moved an inch.

"It's too heavy," I said, in the hope of a decent excuse. In honesty, I doubted that I could have lifted even a feather off the ground with my mind. I had no idea what I was doing. The last three or so hours had consisted entirely of me just _looking really hard_ at it in the hope that it would somehow spontaneously float off the ground.

No wonder the bloody thing hadn't moved.

He raised an eyebrow and brought his glove-clad left hand up, flicking his two fingers. The helmet zoomed from its place on the floor and came flying towards my head. I ducked just in time before it crashed into the wall behind me, falling to the floor with a loud bang. My heart was in my chest.

"What the _hell?_ " I nearly yelled, "You could have decapitated me!"

"It's not too heavy, you're just too weak." He explained, completely ignoring my outburst. The helmet floated from behind me and came to rest once again on the floor, where it had spent the last three hours.

"Try again,"

I licked my lips, biting back an annoyed retort. The guy may have been pissing me off, but that didn't mean that I was stupid enough to try to irritate him in response. He was stood with his hands behind his back, his brooding eyes looking at me almost too intensely.

 _I'll show you too weak._

I raised my hand in front of me, not for any reason other than the fact that Ren had done the same action only a few seconds before and it had seemed to work. There was an anger inside of me at his obvious dismissal of my abilities, and it burned up through my gut. I stared at the mask, putting all of my hatred and all of my furiousity into the cold metal, looking at it so intently that my eyes began to water.

The mask shifted a centimetre away from me.

I put my hand down, breathing heavily, my shirt damp from the exertion. I'd done it. I'd bloody _done it!_

I looked up at Ren, a smug smile on my face at my achievement, but his expression was as stony as ever.

"I moved your mask," I said incredulously, "I just _moved it_!" I even pointed to the ground.

"You shifted it. There's a difference." He replied, his voice monotonous. Despite that, I could have sworn that the corner of his full lip quirked up into something that couldn't quite be described as a smile, but was definitely something.

"I moved it. That counts." I deadpanned back.

He raised an eyebrow at the defiance in my voice.

"Watch your tone, little bird. I'm here to teach you, not to be your friend."

A shiver of ice ran down my back at his words. I couldn't help but hear the truth in them. This was a man who could kill someone in seconds, it would be in my interest not to rile him.

"I have an idea, Robin." He said, removing his hands from behind his back and walking up to me, stepping over the mask as he did so. He stood in front of me, a vision in black, his pale face the only thing about him that didn't absorb light. I took a step backwards, and he raised a brow at me but made no comment.

"This morning your force-wielding was controlled by your emotions. You were scared of what I would do if the plate dropped, and that fear manifested itself into an expression of force."

"Alright..." I said, not quite sure that I liked the idea of where this train of thought was headed.

"I'm going to make you emotional, and you're going to move that helmet."

I bit my lip and nodded. It made sense, I guessed.

"We'll start with irritation. I'm going to annoy you." He spun on his heel and walked back to his original place, the helmet on the floor between us.

 _It's a bit fucking late for that._

A small pain suddenly shot up the back of my head, almost like someone had flicked me with their finger. I raised my hand to my skull, confused.

"What the-"

The pain came again, slightly more pronounced this time. And again, and again. I looked up at Ren, who's head was tilted sideways, curious as to how I would respond.

"Is that you?" I asked, wincing as another flick came, this one to my left ear.

"Move the mask," he said in response. Another flick, and another.

"Stop it," I said, uncomfortable with the feeling.

"Move the mask."

I gritted my teeth in irritation, flick after flick hitting the back of my head, my neck, my ears. A small smile graced Ren's face as he took in my annoyance. I looked at the mask, holding my hand out again, trying not to get distracted by the pain of the flicks. I focused all of my energy on the object, looking at it through a haze of red.

"Move the goddamn mask, Robin."

"GAH!" I breathed out a grunt and the mask toppled slightly in its place and fell over. The flicking stopped.

"Not good enough."

I rolled my eyes.

"I'm _trying,_ Sir," I explained, my face red, sweat dripping down my cheeks.

"Don't call me Sir." He looked at me with those impossibly dark eyes, "Ren will suffice."

"I'm trying, _Ren_." I emphasised the last word slightly too sassily for safety. I was pissed off. I'd only found out that I was capable of force-wielding that _morning_ , and he was somehow expecting me to be able to fly helmets around the room on a whim?

He said nothing in response to my disrespectful tone, just stared at the mask, which was still rocking slightly with the momentum of its fall. The room was silent, echoing our shared breathing. I was wrong to have spoken to him like that. He was powerful, much more so than me, I should watch my mouth around him.

"I'm sorr-" I began to say, but as soon as I opened my mouth, his eyes flashed upwards and his hand outstretched towards me. I felt myself lifted up, a tight vice around my throat.

I began to panic, my feet dangling a few inches above the ground, the invisible hand around my neck constricting around my oesophagus, cutting off my air supply. I looked up at Ren in shock. His face was impassive, watching expressionlessly as I struggled in vain for air.

"Let me go-" I managed to choke out, the words sounding more like a whine than an order.

He smiled.

"Make me."

My eyebrows raised in shock at his words, as black spots began to cover my vision.I panicked, my legs kicking into open space, my throat now completely closed. My heart rate increased to such a rate that I could hear it in my ears rather than feel it. Through all of this, Ren remained motionless.

I brought my hand up in front of me, almost without thinking, and suddenly, the pressure was gone. I fell to the ground with a resounding crash, gulping in lungfuls of much-needed oxygen raspily, holding my throat with my hands.

I brought my eyes up to see Ren spreadeagled on the floor, a small dent in the wall behind him that definitely hadn't been there before. I'd thrown him against the wall with such velocity that he'd literally dented it? He choked out a cough.

"Fear."

I looked up confused, as Ren pulled himself up. There was a small cut on his forehead, leaking bright red blood, the only sign of colour on his white face. He was smiling.

"Fear is your power, Robin." He was out of breath, but there was a grin that stretched the whole way across his face. It looked almost... wrong.

He held out his hand to me, and I looked up at it confused for a second, before reaching up my own, wrapping my fingers around his much longer leather-clad ones. He pulled me up and let me dust myself down slightly, before taking a step back and looking at me pensively.

"All we need to do now is teach you how to control your fear and turn it into something productive."

I nodded, still trying to catch my breath, my hand tingling slightly from the feeling of the warmth of his fingers underneath his leather glove.

"I think you're done for the day." He said to me, grabbing his helmet from the floor and placing it on his head.

"Make sure you get some sleep tonight, you have a big day tomorrow, Robin."

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	4. Fastidious

**LOCATION : MAIN LIBRARY - STARKILLER BASE**

 **STARDATE : 16/09/1843**

"There are three main parts to your training."

Ren's voice was muffled slightly by the large mask, and I ended up having to jog to keep up with his long strides as we made our way through the ship towards the library. I had been woken very rudely that morning by a trooper making its way into my dorm room, which I shared with twenty other kitchen workers, and telling me to get up because Ren needed me Right This Exact Second.

I had barely had time to throw on some clothes, a simple black tank top and a pair of black leggings, and tie my hair up in a ponytail behind my head before I was dragged unceremoniously through the twisting halls and dumped outside Ren's quarters. He, irritatingly, had been ready immediately.

"You have your force training," he explained, continuing to walk. My stomach rumbled, I hadn't had time for breakfast that morning, and was starving.

"That's what we did yesterday?" I asked. He nodded his covered head, and I grimaced at the memory. In the back of my mind, I could still feel my throat constricting under the pressure of his force. I mean, I had managed to throw the guy into a wall using just my mind, so it hadn't all been bad, but I'd appreciate not almost getting choked out for the foreseeable future.

"Then, we have the theory. You can't just know how to use the force," he explained, continuing to walk, "You need to know how to understand it."

I nodded, feeling my ponytail swing behind my head as I walked. That made sense, I guessed. Mostly, I was just happy that I didn't have to spend the whole day trying to force-move that bloody helmet.

"What's the third?" I asked as he spun around a corner and reached a large set of double doors. He pushed them open and walked inside gesturing for me to follow him.

"The last part of your training, Robin, is combat skills. It doesn't matter how many bricks you can force-throw at someone if you can't handle a lightsaber you'll die in a fight. We will be studying that this afternoon."

I tried to suppress a slight groan at the news. My body was still aching after the events of yesterday, and I didn't even move a lot during force-training. I wasn't looking forward to combat skills, especially not against a guy who was at least a foot taller than me, and looked like he carried so much muscle mass he could throw me against a wall with one arm.

I said nothing, however, instead following Ren through the long corridor to a second door. He carefully removed one of his gloves and pressed a long pale finger to the print scanner. He saw me staring.

"It's locked to most of the crew," he explained, sliding his glove back on his hand as the door beeped and he pushed it open, "Reading is thought of as a luxury by Snoke, and Starkiller base doesn't have time for luxuries." It may have just been my imagination but there seemed to be a note of anger in his metallic voice.

I stepped through the door and promptly stopped breathing.

"Holy fuck," I muttered, slightly louder than I had expected, as I heard a small snort from inside Ren's helmet at my statement.

"I know, right?"

The library was incredible. The ceiling itself was so high that I could barely see it, and all around me were stone pillars and large wooden shelves, stretching so high that they tapered off beyond my field of vision. And all around me in every nook and cranny were books, books, _books._ I'd never seen so many in my life. There were books on the Resistance, the Force, Jedi training and the rise of the First Order, but as well as that there were novels and encyclopaedias, spanning as far as the eye could see. I turned to Ren, my eyes bright.

He had removed his mask and was holding it underneath his arm. He averted his eyes when I looked at him, as if slightly embarrassed that he had been watching me staring.

"I come here all the time, when I have a few hours spare," he admitted, walking further into the library and gesturing for me to join him. I followed, struggling to keep up with his long strides. "I'll get your fingerprints on the system so you can come in when you want."

My brow wrinkled in confusion at his offer. That was surprisingly kind of him.

"Thanks" I responded. It would definitely be nice to have the opportunity to come in here more often.

He stuck his arm out to a large wooden bookshelf on his left, and a heavy leather-bound tome flew into his outstretched hand. He took a seat down at a wooden table and gestured for me to do the same. I perched myself on a comfortable cushioned chair and placed my elbows on the table in front of me.

"Read the first Chapter," Ren said to me, sliding the book across the space between us.

Ah, shit.

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to tell him this, somehow hoping that he would just teach me himself. I toyed with the corner of the book.

"Read the Chapter, Robin. What are you waiting for?" He asked, his voice impatient.

"I, uh," I mumbled out, uncomfortable, "I can't read very well."

He raised an eyebrow over a dark eye.

"What?"

I sighed and leant back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest in embarrassment.

"I know the alphabet, roughly," I explained, "But we never got taught much else."

He leant forwards against the table towards me, folding his arms in front of himself. His face was shocked.

"They never taught you how to read?" There was a tone of disbelief to his voice.

"I'm a chef, Ren," I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, my face red, "The ability to decipher syntax and the ability to make a good souffle don't really cross streams."

"Shit," he breathed out the word almost inaudibly, "I didn't know. I'm sorry,"

I wanted to say something in response but didn't get to speak, as he unexpectedly stood up and dragged his chair around the table, sitting next to me instead. There was roughly half a metre of space between us, but I could still feel the heat radiating from his body.

He grabbed the book and opened it up to the first chapter.

"You know the alphabet?" He asked me, looking at me intently. I nodded. We had all been taught during our initiation periods, and I distinctly remember a too-happy blonde teacher trying to drill all 26 letters into our heads.

"What's the title of this Chapter?" He asked, pointing to the thick black writing at the top of the page. It was a single word, with no spaces. I sighed deeply. This was going back a long time.

"It starts with an M."

He nodded, "It certainly does, but we're gonna need a bit more than that."

I rolled my eyes at the sarcasm in his voice.

"Alright," I placed my finger on the M at the beginning of the word and traced each letter as I read, "M-I, uh, D-I-G"

"That's a C," Ren interrupted me. He drew a semicircle on the table with his finger, "A C is a half-circle, a G has a stalk in the middle of it, "He then traced out the shape of a capital G on the table with his finger. I saw the difference. "You do it."

"What?"

"Draw it out,"

I looked at him to see if he was joking, but his face was deadly serious. I gingerly traced my finger in a semicircle on the soft paper of the book.

"C."

I then drew out what I thought was a G, a semicircle with a slight bridge on the end. Ren shook his head.

"Not quite."

He reached his hand over to mine and grasped my finger gently, tracing out a capital G. Even through the leather of his gloves I could feel the warmth of his fingers. The contact surprised me, it was the first time he had touched me since he had grabbed my shoulders roughly in his quarters, pulling me up fro the ground. This was a different kind of touch entirely, far more gentle.

"That is a G," He said, removing his hand and nodding at the book, "Carry on."

"C-H-I,"

"That's an L,"

"Sorry, L. O-R-I-A-N-S. Midi-chlorians?"

He nodded at me, taking the book and sliding it over to himself.

"Midi-chlorians," He answered, his eyes skimming over the words on the page at an alarming rate. It was humiliating to think that he could devour a whole book in the time that it would take me to read one page. "Midi-chlorians are the reason everything in the universe can survive. They're microscopic living creatures that live in the cells of all organisms. You have them, I have them, that ass of a head chef you used to work for has them."

I snorted out a laugh.

"Some people, however, have more than others. Force-wielders and Jedi have a higher concentration of midi-chlorians than ordinary people."

I nodded in interest. Looking over at the page, where the words all slurred together into a jumble of letters. I'd heard about midi-chlorians, but didn't know enough about them to fully understand them.

It looked like that was about to change.

After 4 hours of force theory, complete with Ren getting increasingly more annoyed at me as my reading incompetence became clearer, we finally ended for a break. There were times when he asked me to read out whole sentences from the book, and it would take me at least five minutes each time. He stopped when he heard my stomach let out a deep rumble for the fourth time.

"Have you eaten today?" He asked me. I shook my head.

"You should get something," he told me, standing up from the table and closing the book, handing it to me, "We're starting combat training this afternoon."

My eyebrows raised in surprise as I grabbed the book and held it to my chest. Combat training. That would be difficult work. I followed Ren through the corridors of the library, holding the book in my hands tightly.

"You should take another one," Ren told me, holding out his hand to the table, making his helmet float from into his outstretched grasp, "Practice your reading."

I nodded. Yeah, that made sense. Another book was a good idea. There were a few slightly shorter bookshelves near me, still towering over me, but not so tall that I couldn't see the top of them. I bent down to look at the books on the bottom shelf, squinting my eyes in an attempt to read the titles on the spines.

One of them stuck out to me. 'The History Of The Jedi'. I bit my lip and placed down the book I was holding, pulling the thick book out of the bookcase. It was wide, and stuck as I pulled, so I tugged slightly harder.

"Come on, we don't have all day." A voice came from Ren. I rolled my eyes and gave the book a giant tug, leaning back as I pulled. It finally came free, leaving the bookshelf wobbling slightly at the momentum. It wobbled forwards, and tipped, falling towards me, ready to crush me under it.

My mouth opened in a scream as the giant wooden structure came toppling down on me, hundreds of books falling with it. I raised my hands above my head.

I heard the low crash of a metal helmet being dropped on the floor.

My hands were still over my head, but nothing was falling on me. There was no pain, no noise. I looked up in confusion to see the entire bookshelf, along with all of its books, hovering precariously over me unnaturally. My eyes flicked to Ren, whose hand was stretched out, a look of panic on his usually unexpressive face. His eyes were wide, his hand shaking slightly with the exertion of holding up an entire tonne of wood and paper.

"Get out from under there," He said through gritted teeth. I grabbed my book and rolled out from underneath the bookcase, which was only a few inches above my crouched body. As soon as I was out of range, Ren dropped his hand and the furniture crashed to the floor, books and papers spilling everywhere. He was breathing heavily.

"Can you try not to be a walking disaster for five minutes, Robin?" His voice came out slightly strained, and I could see a single bead of sweat forming on his pale brow. Holding up such a heavy object, even for a short time, had definitely had an effect on him. Adrenaline was running through my body, my heart thumping as I looked up at him.

"You just... you just saved my life..." I mumbled.

He pursed his lips and picked his helmet up from the floor where he had dropped it. He looked down at me with an expression of contempt, but I couldn't help but notice that there was something else in those dark eyes. A flicker of emotion that resonated with the fear I had seen in his face when I had nearly been crushed.

"I'll try not to make a habit of it," He responded coolly, "Get some lunch, Robin. This afternoon we start combat training."

With that he turned on his heel and walked out of the library, leaving me stood alone, clutching my books, breath coming fast, wondering what the hell had just happened.

 **ACH AYE THE NOO PLEASE REVIEW that actually rhymed which is pretty cool, Hope you're liking so far. x**


	5. Fatigue

**LOCATION : KITCHEN FOUR - STARKILLER BASE**

 **STARDATE : 16/09/1843**

It was a weird sensation, coming back to Kitchen Four after everything that had happened over the past two days. I had a friend who worked there, RN-5400, and my hope was to sneak in and grab a box of dehydrated carb supplements without bumping into the head chef. I didn't think he'd forgiven me for Ren force throwing him into a box of egg powder yesterday.

I reached the kitchen just after twelve O'Clock, and, luckily for me, it was mostly empty. Almost all of the workers had clocked out to eat their own lunches, leaving the usually mad busy kitchen with only a few workers. I sighed in relief to myself when I spotted RN-5400, up to her elbows in soapy dishes, her jet black hair piled high above her head and tucked into a regulation blue plastic hairnet. I strode over to her quickly. I didn't know how much time I had before Ren expected me to meet him back at Training Room R6 for combat training, but I wasn't keen to be late.

"5400," I said as I reached her. She spun around, a look of shock on her clear face, a half-washed dish in her hand.

"Holy shit, 0087," her eyebrows had raised so high that they almost disappeared behind her hairnet, "Where the hell have you been? Head chef's not telling us anything apart from the fact that you were sent for reprimanding following the incident with Ren yesterday," Her words came out in a jumbled mess. I rolled my eyes at her questions and reached up into a cupboard above her head for a packet of high-fibre crackers.

"I'm not getting reprimanded," I told her, biting into the cracker. It was dry, and I wrinkled my nose slightly at the aftertaste it left in my mouth, but food was food, so I kept eating.

"Did you seriously drop a plate on the floor?"

I snorted out a laugh, spraying crumbs out of my mouth, "It's kind of hard to explain," I begun, "But he's training me."

Her brow raised in confusion and she gave me a stern look, "Ren is training you?"

I nodded, pulling out a bottle of water from below the sink and squirting at least half of it into my mouth in one go, "When I dropped the plate, I caught it."

"He's training you because you have good reflexes?" She raised an eyebrow incredulously. I shook my head.

"I caught it with my mind, 5400,"

She dropped the plate she was holding and it crashed into the sink along with the others, the loud noise causing some of the kitchen workers to look around. She leant into me and hissed.

"You're force-sensitive? Why did you never tell me?"

"I didn't know!" I defended myself, "I only found out when I dropped his bloody sandwich on the floor!"

"Holy shit," she let out a deep breath, then looked back at me, a mischievous smile on her face, "What's he like to work with?"

"A pain in the arse," I responded almost immediately. She let out a snort of laughter and I continued.

"Seriously. It's all 'focus, you're not trying hard enough," I explained, trying to make my voice deeper in a mimicry of Ren's baritone, "I've got combat training with him next. The guy's going to tear me apart!"

"You have combat training _next_?" she asked, panic on her face, "Shit. Go, hurry up. You don't want to be late for a guy like Ren."

A wave of panic hit me. She was right. I shoved the remainder of the cracker into my mouth, grabbing two bottles of water from under the sink.

"I'll see you tonight," I said, turning to go. RN-5400 was in my dorm room, along with twenty other kitchen workers, we had known each other since as long as I could remember.

"Good luck, 0087," She said to me as I left.

"Robin," I corrected her.

"What?"

"He calls me Robin."

* * *

I practically ran the whole way to Training Room 6, bottles of water in my hand. The look on my face must have warned all of the other workers, who stepped quickly out of my way as I passed, that I was on a mission. I reached the room within minutes, and scanned myself in with my fingerprint, pushing the door open and practically falling in, out of breath from my run.

"Well this isn't a good start,"

I struggled not to roll my eyes at the confidence in his voice, and instead stood up as straight as I could, still almost a foot shorter than him, and looked him in the eyes. He'd taken his mask off, I could see it in my peripheral, propped up against the wall in the corner of the room, and his gaze was so intense that I had to drop my eyes after a few seconds. There was something about those dark brown eyes that creeped me out.

He'd removed his thick black cloak and was stood in only a pair of black trousers and a loose-fitting black shirt. Ease of manoeuvrability, I assumed.

"I just ran... here... from the kitchen," I explained my lateness between gasping breaths, still winded.

"From the _kitchen_?" he asked, "And you're _that_ out of breath?"

I knew he was insulting me, but couldn't find it in me to care. My daily routine was get up, cook, eat, cook, go to bed. Of course I wasn't used to running such large distances.

"Yeah, well they don't really factor much cardio into Kitchen Training unless you count kneading very thick bread dough so I'm a bit out of practice."

Where the hell had that come from? I was tired and hungry, which always led to a snappy mouth. I looked up warily at Ren for any sign of anger, but he just pursed his lips in distaste and let a small huff of air out of his nose.

"Give me two laps of the room."

My eyebrows raised. The room was easily had a perimeter of more than a kilometre.

"Come on, Robin. Let's not waste any more time, here." He said, but I couldn't help but notice the tiny glint in his eye that betrayed a twinge of humour. I struggled not to roll my eyes, and instead placed my water bottles down by the side of the room and started running.

It turns out, it was considerably bigger than a kilometre. By the end of two laps, I was gasping for air, my face red, my hair sticking to my cheeks with sweat. Ren, as always, was infuriatingly immobile, _his_ dark hair as disgustingly perfect as always.

I looked up at him expectantly, and he studied his gloves, saying offhand, "Thirty press-ups. Then we start."

Well if this was my punishment for sassing him earlier, I figured I should just shut up and take it. I suppressed an irritated groan and dropped to the floor.

Thirty press-ups sound easy in theory, but, in reality, it's quite different. By the time that I had finally finished my warm-up, my hands were sweating so much that they slid around on the blue mats the floor was covered in. I managed to push myself up off the floor with great difficulty and face Ren, who had been watching me silently throughout the whole endeavour.

"Alright, so we need to work on your _fitness_ ," he said, raising a single eyebrow at my bedraggled state, "That goes without saying. But what are your combat skills like?"

I was silent for a second before I realised that the question wasn't rhetorical.

"Not good," I admitted, my heart rate beginning to return to normal, "I've never been in a fight."

He nodded, unsurprised.

"Okay, I'm going to start with some simple self-defence, alright?"

I nodded once, and he took a single step towards me, covering the distance between us in one stride. I had to strain my neck to look up into his eyes.

"You would only use this in hand-to-hand combat," he explained, "The moves and stances only work if you're weaponless. As it is, I wouldn't stand within twelve feet of you when you're holding a lightsaber, so I'm going to try to improve your balance and coordination before we move on to actual weapons training." The corner of his lip quirked up into a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"You need to get into a guard stance first," He took a step back and tilted his head to the side, his eyes running down my body. I suddenly felt slightly too exposed in my tight tank top and leggings.

"You have good posture," He told me, "That works in your favour. Bring your fists up and put your right foot forwards."

I did as he said, and he took another step back, appraising.

"Not quite," he muttered. He walked behind me. I automatically tensed up, on high alert. Something animalistic inside me told me that this was the kind of man who wouldn't hesitate to attack someone with their back turned. I felt a lot less secure when I couldn't see him.

"You're too tense, relax." His voice came from behind my head.

 _Yeah, easy for you to say._

Before I could say anything in response, I promptly stopped breathing as he unexpectedly placed both hands on my waist, his long fingers spanning over my skin. I jumped at the contact, but he ignored it, moving my hips slightly to the side with his hands. Even through two layers of fabric, I could feel the warmth from his fingers.

"You're a little off balance," he mumbled, letting my hips go. The absence of heat from his gloved hands left goosebumps on my skin. He walked back in front of me and looked me dead in the eyes.

"Punch me in the face."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Come again?"

For the first time since I met him, he actually smiled. A very small, fleeting smile, but one that definitely reached his eyes.

"I want you to try to punch me in the face, Robin."

Well, it wasn't like I haven't wanted to punch the guy in the face for the last four months. I brought my right arm backwards and sent it flying towards Ren's face with as much strength as I could muster, all the anger and irritation from the last two days coming out in one heavy blow. He moved his body to the side faster than I would have thought possible for someone his size and grabbed my arm as I punched, bending it painfully backwards.

"Ow, shit," I muttered as he let go of my arm, allowing it to flop back down to my side.

"You can't expect to be in a fight with someone and not get hurt, Robin." he sounded slightly exasperated, "Try again."

I was annoyed now and wildly flailed my arm in the general direction of his face, hoping to hit something. He did the same move, and I ended up with my arm once again back by my side, throbbing, whilst Ren's face was looking irritatingly not-punched.

"That's a simple block for a punch," he explained to me, "You need to step sideways to get yourself out of the way," he stepped sideways to demonstrate, "Then grab the arm punching you and just twist it against the direction of the elbow. You can break it pretty easily from that position."

I nodded in understanding.

"The most important thing about combat is to expect the unexpected," he explained to me, getting back in a guard stance and gesturing for me to do the same.

"Punch me again." He said. He was about a foot away from me, stood in a guard stance, his fists clenched tightly together. I had an idea.

I brought my hand back for a punch and made that I was going for his face. He went to step to the side again, but at the last second, I changed the direction of my punch, dodging his outstretched hand, and hit him directly in the kidney. My fist made contact with a mass of solid muscle, and a choked 'grunt' escaped his lips. He bent double, winded, hand holding his side, looking up at me with amusement.

"I didn't know you had that in you, little bird." he muttered as he pulled himself back up.

"Expect the unexpected," I reminded him, He rolled his eyes.

"Alright, I'm going to punch you, block it."

I nodded and bit my lip. This was the part that I had apprehension for.

I brought my hands back up into a guard stance and Ren brought his right hand back slowly.

"We're going to do this in slow-motion for the first few goes until you get the hang of it, alright?"

I nodded, and he brought his fist forwards towards my face. I stepped sideways, as he had before, and grabbed his wrist, twisting it backwards. He let out a small whistle of pain through his teeth and I let go.

"Nice," he said, rubbing his wrist, "Very nice. I'm gonna speed it up a bit."

I don't know how long we stayed like that, him punching me followed up by me punching him, then swapped again. He was a lot stronger than me, and a lot faster, and I couldn't help but get the feeling that he was holding back a great deal in order to help me. For some reason, that annoyed me most of all. After a few hours, my arm was getting tired, and I was lagging. Ren, of course, was just as irritatingly energetic as he had been at the beginning of our session.

My punches started getting weaker, and I could see that he was beginning to get irritated at me. After one particularly bad punch, which missed his face entirely and was actually hit the air next to his left cheek, he grabbed my arm and twisted it si sharply that I actually let out a low grunt of pain. He didn't stop there, though. He pulled my arm forwards roughly, unbalancing me, and with his left foot he swept my right leg from underneath me, causing me to go crashing to the floor. I landed painfully, jarring my tailbone, but before I could get up, Ren had dropped and was straddling my body, his legs either side of my torso, his hands holding my wrists, pinning them above my head.

His face was inches from mine, and he was breathing heavily for the first time. I wriggled in an attempt to get out of his grasp, but eventually gave up. He was too heavy and much too strong.

"Expect the unexpected," his voice was barely a whisper, but with his face so close to mine, I had no problem hearing it. I don't know what made me say what I did, whether it was the adrenaline running through my body or the irritation I felt and having been caught out, but for some reason, the words came tumbling from my mouth against my better judgement.

"I'm not afraid of you, Ren."

He was silent for a second, the only noise in the area being our laboured breathing. Then I saw a sly smile creep up the side of his mouth.

"Oh, little bird. You should be."


	6. Feasibility

**I plan on fluctuating this story between first and third person. To clarify, if you're reading in the first person, it is Robin speaking, and if you are reading in the third person, it's usually going to be from Kylo's point of view. This chapter is written from the perspective of Kylo. Hope you enjoy x**

* * *

 **LOCATION : KYLO REN'S QUARTERS - STARKILLER BASE**

 **STARDATE: 17/09/1843**

Ren couldn't sleep.

He took a glance beside himself at the small clock that rested on the table next to his bed.

3:30.

He rubbed his tired eyes with his hand and sat up, pushing his long hair back from his face, and let out a deep sigh.

He shouldn't have done what he did today, not at all. He shouldn't have let himself get that close to that blasted girl. He could excuse the moment in the library, when he had grasped her much smaller hand in his and traced out the curved shape of a 'G' on the wooden table. That was teaching, he was helping her learn, but what had he been _thinking_ during combat training? His plan was just to let the girl throw a few punches at him, increase her confidence slightly, but instead, he had ended up straddling her, his face inches from hers. He had gone much too far.

He'd wanted to make her frightened of him.

And what had she said?

 _'You don't scare me, Ren.'_

He had been so close to her that he would have been able to see the smallest twitch of an eyelid or the quirk of a lip to betray that she was lying, but her face was rock hard as she spoke. She was telling the truth.

That irked him more than he wanted to admit to himself. This girl, this insignificant girl with a mouth that was slightly too quick and reflexes that were slightly too slow. She had stood up to him in a way that none of the Generals or the Commanders had ever dared. Even General Hux wouldn't have spoken to him with such a level of disrespect, and he hated Ren on a molecular level.

He lay back down, closing his eyes. His day tomorrow would be busy, he had another force-session planned with Robin, using her fear in order to exploit her power. Snoke would be proud of him. Ren tried to make his mind go blank, willing himself to fall into unconsciousness, but the same image kept sneaking, uninvited, into his mind.

Robin, her black tank top soaked through with sweat, her breath coming fast, pinned underneath his much larger body.

It was an image that he couldn't quite convince himself he hated.

* * *

 **LOCATION: TRAINING ROOM FOUR - STARKILLER BASE**

 **STARDATE: 17/09/1843**

"No,"

Robin's voice left no room for interpretation, she was outright refusing. It surprised Ren that she had the audacity to refuse a direct order, but she seemed adamant.

"Robin, this is the easiest way to-"

"I said no,"

Ren rolled his eyes dramatically and folded his arms across his chest, looking at Robin with a raised eyebrow. She folded her own arms across her own chest in response. The pair of them were back in the training room, and after almost an hour of Robin trying and failing to move the metal mask in the middle of the floor, Ren had come up with an idea.

An idea that Robin, to say the least, didn't like an awful lot.

"I'm not having you poking around inside my head, Ren."

He raised a single eyebrow at her disrespectful tone and she backtracked immediately.

"I just mean to say that I'm not comfortable with you mind-reading me, Sir."

He smiled to himself. She had gone back to 'Sir', though whether intentionally or unconsciously he didn't know. It was nice to know that he still held some power over her.

"Your comfort doesn't come into this." His voice was hard, and he saw her visibly flinch at the ice in his tone, "I am training you to control your use of the force and the easiest way to do that is for me to see what you are afraid of, and use that as a lever."

She bit her bottom lip with her teeth, thinking it through. Ren watched her think, and suddenly an idea popped into his head.

"You know I don't need your permission, Robin?" His voice was low, menacing.

Her eyes snapped upwards at his words, afraid. He took a step towards her, revelling in the sudden power imbalance.

"You have no idea what I can do. How powerful I am." His voice was low, menacing.

She took a step backwards. Actually took a step _backwards_. It was all Ren could do to not laugh out loud at the sight.

 _Not afraid of me? We'll see._

"You don't know the half of what I can do, little bird," He took another step forwards, and Robin took another step back until her back pressed up against the whitewashed wall of the training room. Nowhere to run. There were at least five metres between them, and Ren kept pacing forwards, agonisingly slowly.

"I can bend your mind so completely you won't even remember your own name."

Robin licked her lips quickly with her tongue. With his senses heightened by the force, Ren could literally _hear_ how fast her heart was beating, thudding against her ribcage, terrified.

"I'm not scared of you-" It came out as more of a whisper than she had meant it to, and Ren could see the flash of anger in her eyes when her fear was betrayed by her voice.

"Of course, you are," He rolled his eyes and took another step forwards, shortening the distance again, "There's no point in lying to yourself, Robin."

The mask was still between them, long forgotten. Ren stopped, standing only two metres away, the mask resting on the floor in front of him like a protective barrier.

"I can invade every inch of you, Robin, without even lifting a finger. I can make you feel pain that you've never even imagined, and I won't even break a sweat."

It was all true, of course. Snoke had taught Ren well, as had Luke Skywalker. Of course, Skywalker probably wouldn't approve of Kylo's current method of teaching...

He raised a single gloved hand.

"Do you want me to show you?"

Before he knew what had happened, the mask had flown from the ground straight towards his uncovered face. He barely had time to bring his hand up to prevent it from smashing directly into his nose. He held the mask in the air with the force but was surprised to feel that there was a pressure pushing it towards him. A small pressure, but a pressure nonetheless.

"Good," he muttered, taking a step backwards. The pressure decreased slightly.

"No, _no_. Keep this up, Rob."

He saw her eyebrows raise so high in shock at the unexpected nickname that they almost disappeared above her hairline. He smiled. A real smile.

"Come on, Robin, this is good."

She steeled herself and raised her hand towards the mask, which was now floating between the two of them. Kylo felt a slight nudge as it moved towards himself.

 _"Yes."_

She let out something that was halfway between a snort of laughter and a grunt as her face wrinkled in concentration. She let out a long hard breath out of her nose, and the mask started edging its way closer to Ren's face.

"Good, good, keep it going," he encouraged as the mask floated closer towards him. He increased the pressure on his side, and the mask floated away again, back towards Robin.

"Push back," he ordered her, excited. The metal mask floated in between them, caught in the middle of their power struggle.

She bit her lip, beads of sweat beginning to form on her face as she concentrated. He felt a strong push from her side, and the mask moved a few inches forwards. He grinned and looked up at her, surprised to see that she was also smiling.

"Hit me in the fucking nose with it, Robin."

She raised an eyebrow at his phrasing.

"What?"

"Come on, I know how much you want to. This may be your only chanc-"

The word wasn't even out of his mouth when a strong surge of power came from Robin. He had been holding the extent of his force back, only pushing the mask towards Robin with enough force to keep it steady, so the unexpected push took him by surprise, and he didn't have enough time to register it before there was a sharp pain in his face, causing him to stumble back, bringing his hand to his nose.

The mask fell to the floor with a metallic cling.

"Fuck." The word came from Robin, "I'm sorry," She walked over to him, but he raised a hand and she stopped in her place.

"Don't apologise." He said, raising his face. The mask had hit him square in his nose, and there was a small cut just above the bridge of it, but there was a smile on his face so wide that Robin was taken aback by it, "That was great, Robin."

He stood up straight and took a step towards her. She let out a breathy laugh, still slightly out of breath from the exertion.

"I did it."

"You bloody well did," Ren replied, rubbing his nose with his hand. Robin laughed, slightly giddy with the excitement.

"Was that your plan all along?"

Had it been? Ren wasn't quite sure. Had he frightened her in an attempt to get her to use the force against him, or had he just done it to prove to himself that she was frightened of him? He didn't know.

"Of course," he lied, rolling his eyes for added effect, "I knew you had it in you."

She smiled, a beaming smile that actually caused Ren to freeze in his place for a second, transfixed. It was the first smile that she had ever given him.

"Thanks," she said. He shrugged his shoulders. His nose throbbed slightly but he ignored it.

"Don't mention it."

Maybe this wouldn't be so difficult after all.

* * *

 **Please leave a comment telling me what you though of this chapter :)**


	7. Force

**TWO WEEKS LATER**

 **Ren's POV**

 **LOCATION: GENERAL SNOKE'S CHAMBER - STARKILLER BASE**

 **STARDATE: 31/09/1843**

"I want to see her." Snoke's voice echoed around the large chamber, resonating through the air. This had been the fourth of their meetings since Ren had discovered the girl's abilities, and Snoke was appearing to get more irritated as the time went on. He kept asking the same thing, to finally see Robin, but Ren always managed to convince him otherwise.

A muscle in Ren's jaw twitched, the only sign of movement on his stoic face. His head was covered in the mask, so it wasn't like Snoke could see his slight look of apprehension at the words anyway.

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea, Supreme Leader." Ren's voice was metallic, fileterd through the mask. Snoke leant back in his chair and tilted his head, looking at Kylo with an expression of barely concealed contempt.

"And why would that be?"His voice was light. He was toying with Ren, but the man couldn't help but wince slightly at the hidden ice beneath his words. Snoke was getting impatient.

Ren licked his lips. He was too hot under the mask, sweat beading on his neck and forehead.

"She's not strong enough." He answered truthfully. In the past two weeks, Robin had increased in leaps and bounds, but perhaps not in the ways that Snoke had wanted. She could now read the longer words in the books that Ren challenged her to without too much difficulty. Sentences still took her a while, as did punctuation, but Ren was hoping to begin writing classes for her in the near future.

As well as that, he had managed to pull a few strings with the head-chefs of Starkiller base to restart the literacy classes for most of the Kitchen workers. He could only manage to negotiate one class a week for them, but still, at least there would be no more illiterate troopers.

He hadn't told Robin about that.

He didn't know why.

As for her force-training, things had moved _far_ slower than he had been hoping. She seemed to have plateaued after the event with the helmet. He could manage to get her to move it a few metres off the ground, but she could only hold it for a few seconds before dropping it back down again, breath heavy. Anthing denser than the mask, and she couldn't move it at all. She still refused adamantly to allow Ren into her head. He had tried to explain to her, the best way to control her force was to discover her deepest fears, but it appeared that there were some things in her head that she didn't want him to see. He couldn't help but wonder about that, what was there that she was trying to hide from him?

"She wasn't strong enough last week, either." If Ren didn't know better, he would have said that Snoke's voice had a teasing quality to it, "I'm beginning to think that you're just trying to keep her to yourself."

Ren shook his head at the words, though he couldn't claim them to be untrue. He knew how Snoke worked. He had the tendency to creep through someone's mind without stopping to ask their permission, eager for knowledge. There was a part of him that didn't want to subject Robin to that. She wasn't ready for it.

"Her force-training is going slowly, Sir," Ren admited. Snoke rasied his hand, and Ren braced himself for what he knew was to follow. When Snoke wanted answers, he preferred to seek them out for himself.

The thin tendrils of Snoke's force crept through his mind, picking at his memories, searching. The sensation wasn't painful, but was certainly uncomfortable. The long fingers sneaked into a memory of Robin's last force-training session, in the familiar setting of Training Room Four.

 _"Good. Keep that up."_

 _The helmet was hovering a few feet above the ground, but Ren wasn't looking at it. He was concentrating on Robin's face, twisted up in discomfort as she tried to keep the mask floating._

 _"I can't-"_

 _Her hand was raised, shaking slightly with the exertion. She kept the mask in the air for a few more seconds, before letting it drop and bending over taking gasping breaths. The mask rolled on the floor with the momentum of the fall._

 _"Get up." His voice was like ice. She raised her eyes to him, a look of disbelief on her face, "Lift it up again."_

 _"You can't be serious..."_

 _Ren flicked his wrist and the mask lifted immediately, hovering in the air with none of the uncertainty that it had when Robin had tried it. It began to spin slowly._

 _"I'm always serious, Robin."_

 _The mask flew towards her at a high speed, and she brought her hand up, stopping it just before it hit her face. She straightened up, her jaw twitching, holding the mask between her and Ren. Her eyes flashed upwards to him._

 _"Could you perhaps stop trying to decapitate me?"_

Snoke's mind went further into Kylo's, searching for more evidence of his teaching. Ren clenched his gloved fist by his side at the intrusive sensation. He wasn't entirely comfortable with Snoke seeing everything that had happened between himself and Robin. He'd certainly been much more careful with her since their first combat training lesson, when he had embarrassingly lost control around her, but still, he would prefer some of their interactions to stay hidden. Since that day, he had made sure to only touch her when necessary; to improve her posture or show her a particular combat move. The incident hadn't been repeated.

Snoke's tendrils searched deeper, looking through one of Kylo's memories from the large library. He had been teaching Robin about the theory of the force, their voices echoing through the high walls.

 _"What does this word say?" Kylo's voice was quiet._

 _Robin bit her lip, leaning over the table to get a closer look at the word at the tip of Kylo's finger. She had improved her reading greatly since the first day in the library, when she had struggled to even read the word 'Midi-chlorians'. Her green eyes scanned the page, her lips forming out the syllables of the word as she read each individual letter._

 _"Pad... a... wan? Padawan?" She looked up at him questioningly. The pair were sat next to each other, so close that their knees were almost touching under the table._

 _He nodded at her, a small smile on his lips._

 _"Good. A padawan is a student of Jedi. A 'Jedi-in-training', if you will."_

 _She nodded, her eyes scanning over the words in the book, much faster than they had a week before. She was a quick learner._

 _"So am I_ your _Padawan?" she asked him._

 _He let out a low chuckle, and ignored the fact that he had enjoyed when she used the word 'your' a little too much._

 _"Not quite. I'm not a Jedi, and you're not a Jedi-in-training. I'm just a teacher."_

 _She nodded in understanding._

 _"Alright."_

"It seems like she is progressing adequately," Snoke's voice cut through his memory, reminding Ren of where he was.

He let out a small sigh of relief as Snoke removed his intrusion from his mind, bringing him back to the room in which he was stood.

"You will bring her to me this afternoon." Snoke's voice was raspy, breathy through the filter of the holographic image he was being shone through, "Let's see how much your training has payed off."

"Supreme Leader, I don't think that-"

"That wasn't a request, Ren. It was an order."

Ren was silent for a time that was slightly too long to just be a pause of breath.

"Yes, Supreme Leader."

He turned his back and strode out of the room, his steps echoing loudly on the hard floor as he walked.

* * *

 **Robin's POV**

 **LOCATION: GREAT LIBRARY – STARKILLER BASE**

 **STARDATE: 31/09/1943**

"Hansel and Gretel," I said out loud, my voice sounding tiny within the giant walls of the great library. I traced the words on the page with my finger.

"Hansel and Gretel."

When Ren had instructed me to practice reading in my spare time, he probably hadn't meant the large book of Fairy Tales that hid down at the bottom of one of the larger bookshelves, but I was reading it nonetheless. He had given me the whole morning off, telling me that he had 'other things to attend to'. I didn't question it.

I crossed my legs over one another and placed the book on the floor in front of me. It was handy that Ren had logged my fingerprints into the security system, which allowed me to come into the library any time I wanted. I had spent a good deal of my free time surrounded by the smell of paper and old leather. It was surprisingly relaxing.

I tucked a strand of brown hair behind my ear, and placed my finger on the paper, reading the words as I went along.

"I knew I'd find you here." The low voice was unmistakeable. I looked up from my place on the floor to see Ren, mask under his arm, looming over me.

"Come on, get up. There's somewhere you need to be."

There was an unexpected sense of urgency to his voice, and I closed the book and unfolded my legs from underneath me, standing up with it under my arm. Even when standing, the top of my head only came up to Ren's chin.

"What's wrong?" I asked. He didn't answer, just walked away from me with the expectation that I would follow. I placed the book down on a table next to me, I could come back later and pick it up, and ran after him. His strides were at least twice as long as mine, and I found myself jogging to keep up.

"What's going on, Ren?" I asked as he opened the door to the library and held it open for me. I walked through, and he closed the door behind him, the loud click of it's lock echoing around the metallic walls of the corridor.

"Supreme Leader Snoke wants to see you." There was a hint of something unreadable in his voice, something close to irritation. He placed the helmet back onto his head and looked down at me. "I've been ordered to bring you to him."

A shard of ice stabbed through my gut. Supreme Leader Snoke was hardly ever mentioned at the base, but his name brought with it connotations of power and fear. I had known that Ren, as well as a few select others including General Hux, had been in contact with Snoke, but I had no idea that he knew about _me_.

"It's not wise to keep a man like that waiting." Kylo's voice was surprisingly gentle as he continued walking, gesturing for me to follow along.

People moved out of our way as we walked, somehow sensing either by the look of fear on my face or by Ren's purposeful stride that we had somewhere important to be. I followed Ren into a part of the ship that I had never been in before, and the number of people milling around decreased dramatically as we went further into the belly of Starkiller base. Eventually, it was just the two of us, walking quickly through a corridor that was much more dimly lit than the ones I was used to.

"What does he want?" The question echoed in the space between us, but Kylo continued to walk, ignoring my question.

"What does he want from me?" My voice came out slightly irritated. I didn't know what all the secrecy was for. Before I knew what was happening, Ren had stopped walking. He brought his hand out to stop me as well, pushing me backwards and around, so my back was pressed up against the cold metal wall of the corridor. He placed his hands on the wall above me, and looked down at me. Even through the mask, I could tell that he was breathing heavily. My heart jumped in my throat.

 _What the fuck is he doing?_

"You need to listen to what I have to say very carefully, Robin." He was so close to me that I was completely penned in, with no chance of escape. His voice was deathly serious.

"Snoke is powerful. More powerful than me. A _lot_ more powerful than you. If you don't treat him with respect you're going to get hurt."

I was breathing heavily from the unexpected contact. Sure, Ren hadn't actually _touched_ me, apart from moving my arm, but still, the contact seemed _too_ intimate.

"Alright."

Ren seemed to accept my answer, and pushed off from the wall, letting me breathe. Without another word to me, hop removed a single glove and placed his finger onto a scanner just next to me. A door in the wall that had been previously hidden opened up, and he took a step back, extending his arm in an invitation to me.

"Just stay calm and you should be fine." He said quietly. I nodded, nerves tense, and walked into the darkened room.

It was bigger than I thought it would be, the ceiling so high that I could barely see it above me. But that wasn't what made me stop in my tracks. No, that was the gargantuan form of General Snoke that sat at the epicentre of the room, glowing in an almost ethereal light. I felt the small pressure of a hand on my back, pushing me forwards, and I took a step into the room. There was a man stood on the small podium in front of Snoke, dressed entirely in black.

"Hux."

Ren's voice contained more hatred than I had ever heard in it.

"Ren." The red-haired man responded in kind. I could practically feel the tension between the two of them. I walked forwards and stopped next to Hux. The man looked down at me, and I couldn't shake the feeling that he was slightly disgusted by my presence. This was a man who had probably never talked to anybody with a rank less than a Lieutenant, and here I was, a kitchen worker, somehow being granted an audience with Snoke.

"Ah. So you must be the girl I've heard so much about."

Hux's voice told me exactly what he thought of the 'girl he's heard all about'. Ren stood beside me, sandwiching me in between the two men.

"Robin? That's an interesting choice of name." The booming voice came from the giant of a man sat in front of me. His tiny black eyes glistened in the shadowy lump of his face like beetles. I knew that what was in front of me was just a holographic image, as immaterial as a wisp of smoke, but I couldn't help the fear that suddenly encompassed me. I swallowed thickly.

"My number was RN-0087-"

"I know what your number was, child." The words sounded like they were supposed to be comforting, but coming from the monstrosity of flesh and sinew sat in front of me they didn't come out as such, "How has your training been progressing?"

I nodded my head. This was something that I knew, something that I could answer.

"Relatively well, Supreme Leader." My voice rang out in the theatre, "I am now able to lift heavy objects for a short period of time using the Force."

Snoke leant back in his seat, curling his long fingers around the arm rests. His eyes narrowed.

"Ren. Place your mask on the floor."

Oh no, surely he wasn't expecting me to be able to-. Ren removed his mask, exposing his pale face, his expression blank. He placed the mask on the floor in front of me and took a step backwards, all in silence.

"Move it." Snoke's voice boomed. I took a step back, heart racing. I had moved the mask in training sessions, but this was different, with both Snoke and Hux watching me judgementally. I didn't know if I could do it under this amount of pressure.

 _"Calm down."_

The familiar sound of Ren's baritone voice entered my mind. I looked to the side, but he was standing with his hands behind his back, face turned to Snoke. He hadn't spoken out loud, but directly into my head.

 _"You can do this, Robin."_

Again, his mouth hadn't moved. He was right, I could do this. I reached inside myself for the force, and felt a small spark in my chest, accented by the fear that I felt under the watchful eye of Snoke. I raised my hand to the mask, ignoring the fact that it was shaking slightly, and breathed out through my nose. The mask wobbled slightly. I gritted my teeth and pushed with all of my strength, and I saw it slowly float up off the ground, only a few feet, but certainly something. My breath was coming heavy, and fatigue had already set in.

 _"Hold it."_

I nodded my head at the voice and steeled myself, keeping the mask balanced above the ground. I let out a small grunt as I felt it slipping away from me. I had only ever been able to hold the mask for a few seconds at a time, but I was nearing a minute and every muscle in my body was burning, begging for release. Eventually I had to let the mask go, and it fell to the floor with a metallic clang. I dropped my hand and bent double, arms on my knees, taking in gulping breaths. I looked up at Snoke, who was looking down at me with appraisal.

"Not bad. Needs to be improved on."

I nodded, standing back up again. I didn't fail to notice the tiny quirk of Ren's lip as he picked the helmet up again and placed it on his head, sealing it with a click.

 _"Good job, little bird."_

I hid a smile at his praise.

"How has your other training been going? Combat and Theory?" Snoke asked me. Before he gave me a chance to answer, he shook his head, and lifted his hand.

"Never mind. I'll find out for myself."

"What?" the word escaped my mouth before I could stop it. I knew that it sounded rude, but I couldn't help myself. It was then that I felt a small tendril of thought push its way, uninvited, into the back of my mind.

"No," I mumbled, shaking my head, bringing my hand up to my neck, "No."

I felt a firm hand on my left shoulder and looked up to see the smiling face of General Hux, his pale eyes looking almost happy at my discomfort. I looked up at Snoke, panic in my eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched.

"Ren. Ren, I can't do this, Sir." My voice was panicked. I couldn't breathe. I looked over at him, but he remained standing, face turned towards Snoke and away from me. He acted as if he couldn't even hear me. Hux's hand on my shoulder stopped me from moving as Snoke's consciousness crept further into my mind.

 _"Don't fight it. It'll hurt more if you try to fight it."_ Ren's voice was urgent, echoing around my head, which was seeming far too busy for my liking.

I couldn't help myself, I tried to put a wall up in my mind, preventing Snoke from looking through any further, ignoring Ren's advice. A shock of pain ran up my back as Snoke dug deeper, probing at the wall I'd put up in my mind. I let out a quiet hiss.

 _"Robin,"_ Ren's voice contained a hint of desperation, _"Just let him in. It's only going to get worse."_

Everything was too much. Too much pressure in my mind, too much noise echoing around my head. Hux's fingers tightened on my shoulder, and I shook him off, disorientated. My mental wall was crumbling under the pressure, breaking, falling off in cracks. Snoke's mind broke through mine with a rush of pain so great that I actually screamed out loud. My throat was constricting, cutting off my airways in panic.

I felt Ren's hand on my waist, keeping me steady.

Everything went black.

* * *

 **CHUCK US A COMMENT WOULDJA**


	8. Fortitude

**LOCATION: KYLO REN'S QUARTERS - STARKILLER BASE**

 **STARDATE: 1/10/1943**

There was a throbbing in my head. A dull ache that spread from my cranium all through my skull with such ferocity that it felt like my brain was about to fall apart. Besides that, however, I was unexpectedly comfortable. There was a strange sensation of being led on a giant marshmallow, certainly different from the hardwood beds that I was used to in my dorm room.

My eyelids fluttered open, confused, and I squinted at the unexpected scene in front of me. I was in a room. A room that was familiar enough to know that I had been in here before, but not so familiar that I could place it. The walls were grey-washed, and only a few sparse items of furniture filled it, but regardless, it was a much nicer room than the one I usually stayed in.

I looked down at myself. I was… in a _bed?_ The black silk sheets were pulled up to my neck, more luxurious than any fabric I had ever seen. I sat up in confusion, then winced as the sudden movement caused a stab of pain to shoot through my skull once more.

"Fuck, ow." I muttered, bringing my hand to my head.

Taking me by surprise, a warm hand firmly pushed down on my shoulder, gently shoving me back into a lying position. I let out a huff of air as my back hit the soft mattress, and looked up in surprise as the hand lifted from my shoulder. The clear pale face of Ren looked down at me, his eyebrows twisted in an expression of something that was almost concern.

"Don't try to move." His voice was gravelly from lack of sleep, hoarse and low, "Just rest there for a bit. Don't get up too fast."

The lamp beside the bed was switched on, bathing the otherwise dark room in an eerie yellow-tinted light. I looked up at him in confusion, but he didn't offer me any explanation as to my current predicament. He walked silently down to the foot of the bed and pulled up a chair, sitting down in it. He started at me intently, slightly too intently for my liking. I looked around me from my vantage point. The large wooden desk in the corner of the room, the mahogany wardrobe pulled up in the other corner. I knew this place.

Ren's quarters.

I was in Ren's bed?

The knowledge shocked me so much that I pushed myself up from the bed in surprise, looking around me. The sharp pain returned to my head for a second and I winced, before my vision went black and I felt myself fall back onto the mattress.

"I told you."

I rolled my eyes under my eyelids at the smug tone in Ren's voice. I pulled myself up into a sitting position, much slower this time, and looked down the bed at him. He was in a black shirt, tight-fitting, the top two buttons undone. He looked rough, like he hadn't slept.

"What… what happened?" I asked, the throbbing in my head decreasing slightly. He let out a sigh and ran his hand through his hair, pushing the dark strands back from his face.

He raised an eyebrow at me and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.

"You fainted."

"What?"

He bit his lip and looked at me from under hooded eyes.

"It was my fault. I knew that you weren't strong enough, and I went through with it anyway," he looked down, "It's my fault."

"What are you talking about, Ren?" I was confused. The last thing that I remembered was standing before Snoke, telling him about my training progress.

"He tried to read your mind," Ren explained, his eyes never leaving mine, "You weren't ready for it. I think you had a panic attack."

A panic attack? I was certain I had never had one of them before. As I cast my mind back, however, pieces of the events started to come back to me in fragments. The intruding sensation of Snoke's tendrils of thought poking their way, unwanted, into my subconscious. I remembered the feeling of panic, of hopelessness. My throat closing up in fear, breath cutting off. There was a part of me that also remembered Ren's voice inside my head. A low baritone that somehow managed to calm me slightly. Evidently not enough to prevent me from having a panic attack, however.

"Is he angry?" The question left my mouth before I could stop it, and I was slightly embarrassed by the fear in it. Snoke had been adamant that my training progressed as quickly as possible, Ren made that clear to me from the beginning. Would he be angry at me for not being able to withstand a mind-probe in the way he wanted? Ren's mouth twisted up in a self-deprecating smile.

"It's more likely he'll be angry at _me_ , Robin," His voice was tired, emotionless.

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled, the light not reaching his tired eyes.

"He's probably going to blame me for not preparing you well enough. It was my job to teach you everything you needed to know. It's my fault you're not strong enough to withstand a mind-probe."

I raised an eyebrow. For the first time since I had met him, I felt sympathy for Ren. He had to bear the brunt of my failure, constantly searching for Snoke's approval. It explained the reasons why he had been so harsh on me during the first stages of our training.

"I'm sorry,"

He shook his head at my apology, waving it away.

"Don't be sorry. We can work on it."

I nodded and glanced to a clock stuck to the grey-washed wall at the side of the room. 06:46. It wasn't even seven O'Clock in the morning yet. My eyebrows raised in surprise. It had been late afternoon when I had gone to see Snoke, no later than six pm.

"Did you…" I began, not sure how to phrase my question, "Did you stay awake all night?" The dark circles under his eyes and unusually bedraggled look to his hair gave me the impression that it had been a while since he slept.

He nodded his head, scratching his chin with his hand. It surprised me to see it bare, uncovered by the black leather gloves that he usually wore in my company. His fingers were long and smooth, fairly prominent veins sticking up from underneath the pale skin. There was a dark shadow of stubble around his jawline, something that I had never seen on him before. It added to the tired look, but I had to say it didn't look bad on him.

"Yeah. I started reading a book after I brought you in here and I just…" he let out a low chuckle, "Didn't stop."

He glanced over at his desk, where I noticed a thick leather-bound tome splayed open on the dark wood. I smiled to myself. It would probably take me years to read what he had read in a single night.

"Wait… you _brought_ me here?" my voice sounded almost too loud in the silence of his room. If I didn't know better I would have thought that a faint blush crept up his cheek at my question. Luckily for me, I knew better.

"Well you _were_ unconscious, Robin,"

I rolled my eyes, "Yeah. I know that much. But how did you-"

"I carried you."

I was stumped into silence for a second.

"You _carried_ me?"

He nodded.

"The _whole way_ back from Snoke's chamber?"

Another nod.

"That's like," I struggled to think for a second, "At least half an hour's walk."

His mouth twitched.

"Yeah. And you're pretty heavy, so if you could try to pass out slightly closer to a bed next time, that would be great."

I snorted out a laugh at the sarcasm in his voice, and slowly tried to pull myself out of the bed. He was up in a shot, striding over to my side of the large double bed and grabbing hold of my shoulders carefully as I stood, keeping me steady. When I was on my feet, he let me go, taking a step back and surveying me with caution, as if he expected me to keel over. Granted, I was feeling a bit dizzy, but I was standing up well enough on my own, and the splitting pain in my skull had now reduced to a dull ache instead.

"I'm alright, Ren," I ended up saying to him, just to prevent him from looking at me like a china doll that was about to break. He raised his eyebrow in a face that said, 'If you say so' and turned from me, pulling his chair back up to his desk, and sitting on the corner of it, looking back at me.

"What are we doing today?" I asked him. It was surprisingly cold in his room now that I was no longer tucked cosily under a duvet. I was wearing yesterday's clothes; my thin black tank top and a pair of combat trousers. My thick leather boots had been removed at some point in the night, so I stood on the hard floor in nothing but a holey pair of grey wolly socks.

"I'm not going to overwork you," He told me, crossing his arms, "I think you just need a day of rest."

He must have seen the disbelieving look on my face at his words, because he shook his head seconds after he had said them.

"I don't mean you'll be doing nothing, Robin. I just mean that you won't be doing anything that results in physical exertion."

He thought in silence for a second.

"Get some breakfast from the kitchen and meet me in the library at eight. We can work on your reading today."

I nodded. This was more like it. An instruction that was easy to follow, this was the kind of thing that I could do without a problem. This was the kind of thing that I was comfortable with.

"Yes Sir."

"Don't call me Sir," He turned away from me again and opened up his book, scanning the yellowing pages with intensity.

"Ren. Sorry."

He looked over at me and raised an eyebrow.

"Your boots are by the door, Robin. I suggest you hurry up."

I nodded silently and walked over to the door. The sudden movement caused my stomach to lurch slightly, and I grabbed hold of the side of the bed to steady myself. Evidently I wasn't as recovered as I had thought I was.

"Are you alright?" The concern in Ren's voice cut through my periphery and I turned around to see him, half out of his seat, the book on his table forgotten. The worry in his eyes surprised me.

"Yeah," I replied, pushing back off the bed and blinking a few times to get rid of the black spots that were dancing in front of my eyes, "I'm alright. Thanks, Sir."

He coughed lowly.

"Ren. Sorry," I corrected myself and picked up the boots, slipping them onto my feet. I exited his room, closing the door silently and set of walking towards the kitchen.

After everything that had happened, I had a feeling I would need a big breakfast.

 **Thanks for reading and please tell me your thoughts x**


	9. Feel

The library was cold, and I was beginning to regret not having grabbed a coat or something on my way over here. I was dressed in the same clothes that I had slept in, a black pair of running leggings and a grey tank top, my regulation exercise shoes now back on my feet. I sat down at our usual table and reached over the desk to grab the book we had been studying last, an encyclopaedia of the Jedi and Force-Training.

Ren wasn't here yet. He had told me to make my way to the library, and that he would follow me presently. It had almost seemed that he was slightly embarrassed this morning, made lightly uncomfortable by the fact that I had seen him so vulnerable. His eyes had been tired, and the shadow of a night's stubble had covered his strong jaw. I didn't suppose many people had seen him like that before.

I grabbed the hair-tie from my wrist and tied my medium length black locks in a low ponytail behind my head, getting them out of the way, and opened the book. I scanned the pages with my eyes, but the words swam around the parchment like fish, I couldn't concentrate. My head was still aching from last night, and if I moved my eyes too quickly, my brain took a while to catch up. I felt terrible. It wasn't only the after-effects of the mind-meld that were causing my discomfort, however.

I couldn't concentrate because I couldn't stop thinking about him. When I had first met Ren he had embodies everything that I hated. He was arrogant, rude, impolite, and he never thanked a single person for all the work that they had done for him. I had been terrified when I had found out that I had to work with him, but something seemed to have changed between us. I couldn't shake the sound of abject panic in his voice when he had spoken to me before my audience with Snoke, telling me to be careful, to not ager him. He had seemed truly concerned for my wellbeing. And then during the meeting his mind had always been on the periphery of mine, whispering words of encouragement when I thought that I couldn't do it.

There was a very blurry memory of strong warm hands catching my limp body when I fainted, the pain in my head and the tightness in my chest too much to handle. And then for him to tell me this morning that he had single-handedly carried me the entire way back?

I was confused to no end. Half of the time the guy acted like I was a piece of shit that had got stuck to the bottom of his expertly-buffed shoes, and the other half of the time he seemed to genuinely care about me. I wished he would make his bloody mind up.

"Stop daydreaming and start reading, Robin. This isn't a day off." The baritone voice came from only a few metres behind me, and I jumped in surprise. Maybe today would be one of the shit-shoe days. I turned around in my chair, and my eyebrows raised when I saw that he was much closer than I had expected, only a few feet behind me. His face was clean-shaven, and his hair was still slightly wet from his shower.

He raised an eyebrow at me.

"Robin, if you're ever going to be proficient in the Force, you need to make sure you're always in tune to it. You should have known that I was behind you."

He came and sat beside me, and put his arms on the table, folding his hands in front of him. No gloves today.

"How do I do that?" I asked him, honestly curious. If I had the ability to sense the people around me that would certainly make my life a lot easier. It would also mean that he wouldn't get the satisfaction of making me jump.

He pursed his lips together, as if in thought, and turned to look at me. Even sat down, he towered over me.

"Can you feel the Force right now?" He asked. I wrinkled an eyebrow, and thought about it. I could feel the slight chill of the room, I could feel the radiation of warmth from Ren's body. I could hear the steady drip drip dripping of a leaky pipe somewhere in the room, and smell the heady scent of leather bound books. But the Force? No.

"I can't." I admitted. He nodded, and took the book from my hands, placing it far away from the both of us. He took a small leather band from his wrist and placed it on the table in front of us. It was simple, brown and woven into a braid, fraying slightly at the ends. It looked old.

"Lift it." He said. I raised an annoyed eyebrow.

"I thought that we weren't doing force-training today?" I queried. My voice came out slightly snappier than I had intended it to. I was exhausted, mentally and physically, and I didn't think that I could handle another force-session.

"This isn't a democracy, Robin." There was an icy quality to his voice that told me to shut up and do what he said. I reached my hand out to the small leather band and reached inside myself, feeling the small spark of warmth that I had come to recognise as my Force. Breathing out through my nostrils, I lifted the band a few inches off the table and let it float there, unsupported.

"Good. Don't let go." He instructed, his voice stern. I listened, keeping the band floating in the air. It wasn't as heavy as the mask, and lifting it wasn't exactly easy, but was certainly a lot less work than lifting the helmet. Because of this, my mind wasn't entirely concentrated on keeping the band in the air, I had the ability to think.

"Alright," He instructed, "Look around you."

I moved my head to the side, and felt his hand come to rest on my shoulder, preventing me from turning my body.

"Look with your mind, Robin. Not your eyes."

Well I had absolutely no idea how to do that, but I tried anyway. I pushed the small glow of warmth in my chest from the Force away from me slightly, searching blind, looking for something, anything. My eyes were still fixed firmly on the band, which was still steady, but my mind was elsewhere. I could feel the heavy wooden table, sense its composition and history, and beside it the thick red armchairs. And then next to me, I could sense the warm large body of Ren.

It was different to looking at him. More intimate, somehow. My gaze was still planted firmly on the band, but I felt as if I was looking not only into his eyes, but right into his soul. I could sense his heart, the steady lub dub of the ventricles pumping thick red blood throughout his body. I could feel his lungs expanding and contracting with every breath, rushing oxygen through his bronchioles. The rhythmic warmth of his being seemed to almost encompass me. I let out a small gasp of surprise, and his voice entered my head, calm and reassuring.

"You alright, little bird?"

I nodded, probing deeper, feeling the crevices of his torso, the elegant lines of his hands. I hadn't moved from my seat, but my mind was all over him, drinking in this new sensation.

"Do you see everyone like this?" I asked him. My mouth hadn't moved. I had spoken directly into his head.

 _Cool. I didn't know I could do that._

I heard a low chuckle.

"Yes. I do."

A part of me felt slightly too exposed with that knowledge. He saw me the way that I saw him now, primal and animalistic, a body in perfect harmony, a well-oiled machine. I could feel his Force, much larger than mine and much more powerful. Where mine was a small spark, his was a burning flame, running through his veins like fire, setting him ablaze from the inside. He reminded me of a panther, a coiled spring with unwritten potential. I won't deny that it scared me a little bit.

I delved deeper, this time into his mind, the shadows and dark places in his innermost thoughts. Unsurprisingly, he blocked me before I could get further than his current thoughts. He felt a little cold, he was tired, and more surprisingly, he thought that my hair looked nice today.

"You don't want to look in there, Robin." His voice was joking, but there was a sense that the sentence was a warning of some sort, "My mind isn't a welcoming place."

The band in front of me dropped back to the table, and I took a shuddering breath inwards as the Force retreated back inside me, lighting my gut from the inside. It was gone, but I could still feel it.

"Alright, give it another go, but leave the band where it is." Said Ren. I obeyed him, and was surprised to feel that I could easily do the same thing again, sensing his being rather than just knowing he was there.

He smiled, but there was tightness behind his eyes that seemed almost nervous. I'd got closer to his mind than he'd let anyone get in a while.

"Good job, little bird. I'll make a Force-wielder out of you yet."


End file.
